The Trail Boys of the Plains; Or, The Hunt for the Big Buffalo

But it was not all settled in a minute. The affair was of a much too serious nature. First of all the boys were sent away while the fathers privately discussed the journey and w...

“Come along,” said Chet, after the Indians were gone. “Let’s pick up the pieces and get away. We won’t get anywhere on the trail to-day. But there’s one thing sure—we won’t stop...

“The first time I fell plumb asleep,” he said. “And now I went away from the fire for a foolish reason. Just for a drink! But I declare, Chet, I don’t believe I would have done...

In spite of the delay, the boys had made good progress on the Grub Stake trail when they stopped for a bite at noon. They were well through the foothills, the tall mountain in w...

“Bad enough,” answered Mr. Havens, with much disgust, and standing like a stork on one leg until they brought him a stool to sit upon. “It’s going to keep me from going over to...

The two boys went at the task of digging into the other mine with renewed vigour. A murmur of sound came through the intervening wall of earth—unmistakably the voices of the ent...

Chet was taller than his chum and he had risen in his stirrups, while Dig lay out on the black’s neck and cheered him on. So the first named lad saw over the rise and out upon t...

In the dim dusk of late evening the trail boys suddenly came down to the river bank. They were leading their mounts, for the way was so rough they did not want to risk a misstep...

Chet was staring about the opening in the forest. Like the place at which they had seen the lame Indian boy, it was an abandoned camp. Several other claims had been worked here;...

Following the two men who had robbed them, but who had been later overcome by the chums, was, as Dig announced, a tame sort of job. The mounts of the trail boys were so much sup...

The howling of the lone wolf, however, did not take the boys’ appetites away. Fresh venison is rather tough until it has hung awhile; but the parts of the kill Chet and Dig ate...

Chet Havens had been an apt pupil of old Rafe Peters, the hunter who was now mine foreman at the Silent Sue; nor had he missed much that had been told him by other plainsmen. Tr...

The best laid plans are not always successfully, or satisfactorily, carried out. There was, as both boys knew, a big doubt as to whether they could drive the buffaloes in the wa...

The five men shut in the mine with Chet’s father were all married and their wives and children made the noisiest group of all at the mouth of the Silent Sue mine. The rough men...

“Don’t you boys maul me all over no more,” said Tony complainingly. “I tell ye, ye won’t find nothin’ on me—and ye tickle. I never could stand being tickled. Lemme up,” and the...

The sweep of the hill-bound vale was visible for ten miles from the hillside where the boys were encamped. They were almost at the head of the valley. The buffaloes grazed five...

“I don’t know. Unless the story of that Steve’s having lost the deeds is true, and he means to try to slip us and go back to the place where he thinks he dropped them.”

Chet was just as eager and excited as he could be. Dig appeared to be doubtful of the identity of the moving herd they had spied so far away; nevertheless, he felt that the vent...

“You’ve got me there, boy,” said his chum, Dig Fordham, trying for the hundredth time to carve his initials in the adamantine surface of the old horse-block, and with a dull jac...

Chet slipped down from the summit of the rise, motioning to his chum to keep still. For, although the buffaloes were grazing so far away, he feared that a loud word spoken might...

As fast as the catfish were caught they were skinned and dressed. Chet had sliced all the bacon they had brought with them; he told Dig that the way they were feasting now point...

The lame Indian youth did not even look behind to see if he was followed. Digby Fordham was finally as much impressed as his chum. He jerked Hero’s reins out of Chet’s hand and...

Those few yards between the corral and the back door of the Havens’ pretty home in the Silver Run suburb were the hardest steps Chet had ever taken. For his age he was naturally...

The maverick was not a happy addition to the camping party—not at first, at least. Dig tied him to a tree, giving him the length of the lariat to tangle himself up in; and he di...

As Chet surmised, the timber was open, with a good sod and little rubbish or shrubbery. None of the bushes was big enough to hide the buffaloes even at a distance.

There might be very good reason for a silent approach to the camp. Whether it was the camp of the thieves who had troubled them the previous night or not, the campers might be m...

Chet’s second thought was, naturally, for the horses. If anything happened to their mounts out here on the plains, they would be in a bad way indeed. They were all of thirty mil...

The lame Indian youth had no idea of giving up the leadership of the expedition. He grunted, and pushed Chet’s hand away when the white boy reached to take the rudely-made lante...

As Chet Havens and Digby Fordham mounted into the hills, the country about them became wilder and quite free from signs of man’s habitation. Even the behaviour of the birds and...

Mr. Havens and his wife had bidden the chums good-bye when they rode away from the house on the outskirts of Silver Run and watched them as they cantered off down the road. Chet...